


Chemical Compounds

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:32:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is it always OR<br/>Is it never AND?"<br/>- Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods</p><p>Sherlock thinks about chemistry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemical Compounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mad_Lori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Lori/gifts).



> NaNoWriMo One Word Prompt Challenge - "And", from Kathryn

Sherlock sits on his bed and stares at the framed periodic table on the wall of his room. His pose is neat, angular, balanced: knees creating a ninety degree angle, back ramrod straight, palms resting on his thighs. 

He is a detective, an observer of human behaviour, an omniphile. But primarily he is a scientist, specifically a chemist. And so the periodic table is framed and takes a place of honour in his bedroom. Since he discovered the periodic table at the age of six, he has spent many hours studying it, meditating on it.

Everything is chemistry, he thinks. Everything breaks down to a combination of one or more of the chemicals on this chart. Everything. Chewing gum. Alcohol. Heroin. Blood. Gunpowder. Everything.

Salt is a combination of sodium and chloride. Water is created by combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Benign. Innocuous. Carbon and hydrogen chains are present in every combustible; add water to an alkali metal such as caesium and one could take out most of Baker Street.

Sherlock ponders the infinitely more complex periodic table that is the human race. Up until very recently, he considered himself a solitary element, with no need or desire to relate to any other element. He had spent his childhood, nearly as soon as he was weaned (breast milk contains calcium and phosphorus and sodium and potassium and chlorine), removing his dependency, emotional and otherwise, from everyone. People fussed, but he was content with the situation and finally he was left alone.

Then he was evicted from his bedsit, and rather than accept money or assistance from Mycroft, Sherlock decided to seek out a flatshare. He went about this entirely logically. He simply required another human being to provide half the rent and stay out of his way. The only people he really knew were from the Met and that would not be acceptable. He observed Mike Stamford, recognized him as someone who knew a great number of people on a casual basis, and dropped the hint to him. Less than four hours later Mike brought a potential candidate to the lab. 

Sherlock plus a flatmate – not a compound. Two isolated elements. At least that was the intention.

If the flatmate had been anybody but John Watson, the story would have ended there. Sherlock was called to the case and was half way down the stairs and stopped. Stopped and turned around and came back to the sitting room and invited John to come with him. At the time, he told himself it was because John was a doctor and had so far seemed more intelligent than Anderson and would be an able assistant.

Sherlock and John equalled a combination of flatmate and colleague. Acceptable. 

Then in the moment he stopped in mid-sentence and realized the shooter he was describing to Lestrade was John, that John had shot a man to save him (not that he needed saving but they had been over and over that argument), and then made a joke and made Sherlock laugh (release of endorphins) and another compound was introduced.

Flatmate and colleague and friend. 

Novel. Unprecedented. And acceptable, with some adjustments. Sherlock had been surprised to discover, after six months of living as a compound, he ate better and slept better and solved crimes faster. They interacted positively, and the benefits were undeniable. There were concessions made: Bond films and no body parts in the crisper and alternating weeks of cleaning the bathroom. Still, acceptable.

And then last night the compound had changed again. Sherlock didn’t know how, didn’t understand why. And yet.

At 2:37 am last night, Sherlock had been in the sitting room, nearly finished reading a new study on blood splatters when he heard John come down the stairs from his room. He looked up quizzically. 

“Bad dream,” John said, scratching the back of his head.

“Ah,” Sherlock said.

“Tea?” 

“Please.”

Sherlock started to return to his book, but happened to catch sight of John filling the kettle at the sink. His hands were shaking. Adrenalin still flooding his circulation. Memory and fear and war, still lodging in John’s brain and blood, a year after his war had ended.

John returned to the sitting room with two mugs and handed one to Sherlock and sat with a sigh on the sofa. Sherlock put the tea down and picked up his violin and tuned it. 

“Do you know Bach’s Goldberg Variations?” he said.

“Don’t think so.”

“There is an apocryphal story that Bach wrote the Variations for Count Kaiserling to counter his insomnia. The Count expressed his gratitude by giving him a goblet filled with gold pieces.”

“Seems fair,” John smiled. 

Sherlock smiled back and set the violin to his chin and began to play the opening movement to the Variations, the Aria. 

“Lovely,” said John.

Sherlock played through the Variations, softening the tempo for the faster paced movements. After the fifth variation, he looked up and saw that John had fallen asleep. His tea stood on the coffee table, untouched and still warm. 

He played another three variations then quietly put away the violin. He crossed to the sofa and laid one hand on the back of John’s neck and the other on his hip and slid him from a sitting to a recumbent position, arranging his head on a pillow. Then he took the afghan and laid it over him.

He moved John’s tea aside and sat on the coffee table and observed. He did not often get to watch people sleep; most of the people he observed were dead or alive and panicking with guilt and fear. John seemed to be sleeping peacefully now, his breath even and deep. The usual lines on his face were softened. After a time, he observed John’s eyes moving under his lids, an indicator of REM sleep, a deeper, quieter sleep. Sherlock hoped the nightmare would not recur, but thought it might be fascinating to watch if it did. So he stayed and watched and watched and watched and it was not boring at all.

At 7:14 am, John’s eyelids flickered and he took a larger intake of breath and a stretch moved from his shoulders upwards through his arms and downwards to his feet. His eyes opened slowly and he seemed unsurprised to see his flatmate (and colleague and friend) sitting not two feet away, gazing at him intently.

“Hi there,” John said sleepily.

Sherlock looked, and saw John’s hair ruffled and sticking in all directions, and saw the wrinkles on his cheek from the pillow, and how his pyjamas were rumpled, and the rested look in his eyes (breakdown of adenosine during sleep). And suddenly he imagined John waking up this way on the pillows in Sherlock’s bed.  

The image was so vivid and clear that Sherlock couldn’t help but gasp. In a flash, he considered another compound:

Flatmate and colleague and friend and – lover.

And this thought startled Sherlock so greatly that he jumped up and spilled John’s cold tea and grabbed his coat and made some inane declaration about having research to do and – there is no other word for it – _fled_ the flat.

And he had gone to Regent’s Park and walked and walked and walked until he was sure John had gone to the surgery for his shift, and then he returned to Baker Street and went to his bedroom and sat and contemplated the periodic table. 

Chemical compounds can be delicate. Combine two chemicals – benign. Add another – some activity but still harmless. Add another, and the compound and everything around it is destroyed in a reaction. 

Or it can create a compound more powerful than the sum of its parts.

A scientist can develop all the hypotheses he wishes, but one doesn’t really know what will happen until the fourth ingredient is added. The trick is to willingly accept the risk of either solution. But this is different, this is people, not chemicals – there is so much more to risk here. Add the final ingredient, and risk negating the first three, having them vanish, never to be retrieved. 

Flatmate and colleague and friend. Full stop. Or flatmate and colleague and friend and lover. Or nothing, Sherlock Holmes as an isolated element again. Hypothesis and theorem and hope and fear and – 

And John’s footsteps coming up to the flat. 

Sherlock glances around and sees the angles of the sun on the floor. He has no idea what time it is. And John is coming down the hall and calling his name and tapping on the door and Sherlock has no way to escape.

John pushes the door open a bit, blocking Sherlock’s view of the periodic table, and stands in the doorway. Sherlock turns to look at him but does not move; he feels frozen in place. 

“Sherlock, um,” John says, and fiddles with his fingernails. “Um. I wondered if I could. Um. Ask you. Something.”

Sherlock looks and looks at John and sees that his pupils are dilated, and can see his pulse accelerating in his neck, and sees adrenalin rush into his muscles and make his hands shake a little, and he sees a faint flush spread up his neck and into his cheeks and oh. _Oh. **Oh**_.

Sherlock feels warmth gather in his gut and spread outward, sodium light leaking out of his eyes and mouth. He smiles and John smiles back and the light gets brighter and warmer and Sherlock stands and moves towards John and his smile. 

Epinephrine and phenylethylamine and dopamine and testosterone and serotonin and oxytocin. Flatmate and colleague and friend and lover. 

And. And. And.

 

_End_

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for the great and talented Mad_Lori, one of the best Sherlock fanfic writers out there, and spends regular time on her Tumblr educating us about science.


End file.
